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Ask HN: Who were your first 10 hires?

17 points by throwaway129312 ↗ HN
Curious what roles other startups hire for in the early stages. For example, at which point did you hire a full time designer? A full time DevOps guy?

I'll start. We're in seed stage (pre-revenue) and building a B2C app. We have a CEO/"business guy", a CTO/backend developer (myself) and a frontend developer. We're planning on hiring either a designer or another backend developer next.

What about you?

12 comments

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forkLding
I think it depends on the business, care elaborating what kind of business it is? Currently its just CEO/Designer plus CTO (me) and a marketing person
bobosha
This varies widely between startups: we are an AI/ML (machine vision) company, so our first hires were 2 AI/ML developers, added 1 web dev (frontend) and 1 backend engineer to build our MVP. Now are a 15 strong team (added sales, customer success members later)
slowmotarget
French Startup here, created in 2016. We're developing a SaaS software for e-commerce merchants. First we hired a back-end dev, then a full time graphic designer / illustrator, because we think it's crucial to have a strong visual identity.
MuffinFlavored
> We're developing a SaaS software for e-commerce merchants.

Mind elaborating? That's exactly what our SaaS platform is. :)

slowmotarget
We're working on a module for popular e-commerce platforms that will unify referral / customer loyalty and membership rewards!
richardknop
I'm not sure I would give myself a CTO title if I were a single backend developer in a company of 3. Seems a bit ridiculous.
beisner
But technically he /she is the chief technology officer
richardknop
I guess you are right. But CTO is an executive-level position. It doesn't really make sense in a company of three where.

It's like me technically being a director of a company while working as a contractor.

It is technically true but when I get asked about my previous role at interview I'd say I was a software engineer / consultant, not director.

anonfunction
Usually seed stage startup founders assume the roles CEO / CTO from the onset.
hendark
CEO is also an executive level position, but one that is expected to be filled in even a 3 person company. If his day to day work is technical, but he still has comparative decision making power, it is appropriate to denote that by naming himself CTO.
zhte415
I agree with you. It sounds pretentious. Chief of what? Yourself? Chief by definition means chief of others also in a decision making position.

Founder is enough; Founder is a big enough title to encompass the challenge, struggle and reward doing something new, independent or fresh.

fillskills
As our company grew, so did the roles needed to keep it on the path. Initially it was just the CEO and CTO(me). Then came the CMO. That took us to 6 months and some solid revenue. Then we needed help with raising funds, so our first financier became our CFO. Then we needed help with growing a sales team so a Director of Sales came to being. And a year from that, after hitting 10MM Rev/Yr we need a COO to manage all the customer service issues.